


Dichotomy

by Surgical



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Dark, Character Death, F/M, Graphic Description, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Morally Ambiguous Character, Morally Grey Harry Potter, Politics, Pureblood Culture, Romance, Slash, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Violence, Wrong Boy-Who-Lived
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-12
Updated: 2019-11-12
Packaged: 2021-01-29 01:55:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21402250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Surgical/pseuds/Surgical
Summary: ❝ 𝖙𝖔 𝖙𝖊𝖆𝖗 𝖆 𝖐𝖎𝖓𝖌𝖉𝖔𝖒 𝖎𝖓 𝖍𝖆𝖑𝖋 𝖎𝖘 𝖖𝖚𝖎𝖙𝖊 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖑𝖊𝖌𝖆𝖈𝖞... ❞Harry does not remember a life beyond the cottage in the woods, beyond his lectures in Beauxbatons and the all days that bled into one another during isolation. In a sense, he had all but forgotten that beyond this life existed another that he had been denied - a family he would never be welcomed into.Meeting his father for the first time in sixteen years did not endear James Potter to him. Taken away from all he's known back to the British Isle's was the least of his worries. A war was brewing, as was a struggle for power and Harry would find himself at the center of it all.It had been a thousand years since the last King of the Magical world was anointed, and the yearly rituals were treated as little more than an antiquated tradition. Until Harry was chosen. Thrown into a position that is coveted and surrounded by enemies at all sides, Harry must learn what is truly means to be a King in a world that is determined to use him for their own means.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, Fleamont Potter II/Ginny Weasley, Harry Potter/Other(s), Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley, James Potter/Elanor Fawley Potter, Remus Lupin/Nymphadora Tonks
Comments: 9
Kudos: 73





	Dichotomy

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [King Who Lived](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/534028) by cap red. 

> This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

"_**I felt like a shell of myself. So much so that I now have a hard time remembering those dark days in much detail. My mind has blocked them out. But I do remember being convinced that I wasn’t going to live**_."   
—**Emilia Clarke** quoted in “_A Battle For My Life,_” first published _c. March 2019_

* * *

“_**HE WILL COME**_ for your child.” 

  
For a moment she dares to hope that she’d misheard him. He spoke plainly and without infliction; he would not meet her eye, she noted. Her fingers are trembling, and it takes the sharp burst of light in her peripheral for her to resume breathing. James sits beside her, his expression hard and eyes distant. Lily wants to reach over and hold his hand, reassure him even as unbridled tears threatened to spill. 

“Can you,” she says, shakily. “Can you repeat that?” 

The words come out like crushed glass, sharp and jagged. Lily’s hands clenched the fabric of her skirt, hiding the tremors from the old wizard that sat across from her and the portraits that watched, rapt with macabre fascination, as Albus Dumbledore demolished her livelihood. 

“I have reasons to believe that Voldemort will come for your child,” Dumbledore said, gauging her reaction from behind his spectacles. 

It is strange, Lily thinks, how easily he could speak those words; as if they were discussing the weather and not the feasible death of her child. Her heart lurches, and her arms come across her stomach. There is a brief flutter of movement as if her son sensed her duress. 

“Bullshit,” James said, his first word of the evening. 

“James – “ 

“He’s a _baby_,” James continued, ignoring her attempt at diffusion. “He’s not even born yet. He’s done nothing wrong.” His voice strained, confusion and anger and grief saturated into his vocal cords. “He’s innocent.” 

Her teeth burrow into her bottom lip, quieting her distressed whimpers. “Why?” She asked once she’d regained her composure. “You owe us that much …” 

Dumbledore says nothing for a time, and his silence only serves to agitate James further. Lily keeps a hand on her husband’s forearm to keep him grounded. 

When Dumbledore deigns to speak, he sounds tired. Lily is surprised by this. This was not the kindly and lively old headmaster she’d met in her First Year; there was no smile to his aged face, no glimmer of jubilance in his brilliant blue irises. The fatigue has darkened the skin beneath his eyes and left him with a shallow, gaunt appearance. 

“There is a prophecy,” he says, “it says that a child born from those who have thrice defied the Dark Lord will be his undoing, born when the seventh month dies.” 

“It might not even be us,” James said, “Frank and Alice – “ 

“Have also been informed of this prophecy.” 

“There are others who’ve stood against Voldemort, who fought him. Why are we – “ 

“James,” Lily interjected, and her husband falls quiet. She runs a soothing hand down the length of his arm as she speaks. “What are the possibilities of the prophecy coming true?” 

“Fate cannot be defied, my dear, nor can it be cheated. It is called a prophecy for a reason,” Dumbledore said, offering no words of comfort or reassurance to the young couple seated across from him. 

James slumps back into his seat, eyes closed and hand tousling his already disheveled mane further in his frustration. “So, what? We sit and wait for Voldemort to come and kill our son?” 

“You are not without options, James. If you are willing and able, find a Secret Keeper, use the Fidelius Charm and go into hiding.” 

“I will not hide,” James snarled, jerking upright. The velveteen armchair tumbles backward, and the resulting crash startles Fawkes from his slumber. “I won’t sit back and twiddle my _fucking_ thumbs while people are out there dying.” 

“James.” 

“_No_. We knew the consequences when we joined the Order. We knew what we were doing with every mission and every sabotage and interference in Voldemort’s plans. I swore I would fight until the very end.” 

“Even if it means scarifying our baby?” Lily asked, and James gapes at her, startled. His mouth opens and closes a few times before settling into a flat line. “What are we, if we can’t protect him? We _have_ to protect him, no matter the cost.” 

Mollified by her words, or perhaps shamed by his selfish declaration, James nods slowly. Lily turns to face her former Headmaster, her smile strained and eyes wet with unshed tears. “Thank you,” she says, “for telling us. It’s not what we expected, or wanted to hear, but we know what the future has in store for us. For him.” She smooths a hand over her protruding stomach, smile wavering. 

“I’m sorry.” 

✹✹✹

_**SHE LOOKED TERRIBLY**_ small. Her hands are cold in his grasp, pale and unmoving. She does not breath, does not speak – does not respond to the sound of the child she fought to birth crying in the arms of the Mediwitch.   


“He looks a bit like me, Lils,” James says quietly to her, fingers absently caressing the crevices between her hand, trying to warm the cool flesh. “But he has your eyes already and _Merlin_, Lils, he’s so loud. How are you not hearing it?” 

“Mr. Potter,” the Healer interjects, gently, his hand rising to rest on James’ shoulder. “Perhaps it would be best if we speak outside, for a moment.”   


James does not want to leave her side – should not leave her alone, but he does and while part of him listens to the words that Healer Merriweather is saying – complications since conception, stress, her magic dictating the life of the child over her own – he finds himself listening to the watery, weak wailing of the child. 

_ Harry_.   


Lily had named him, strained to utter the it as her heart spluttered and her limbs trembled, and the baby was shoved into James’ arms as the Healer tried to save her. Tried to staunch the bleeding, tried to keep her core balanced. 

“ – I’m sorry for your loss, Mr. Potter,” Healer Merriweather says.   


“She’s not coming back,” James said and the admission all but destroys him. “She’s not coming back.” 

✹✹✹

_**ELANOR HAD SAVED**_ him, in a sense. He does not remember much of it, the months following _her_ death, _her_ funeral and the baby _she_ left him with. His mother sometimes would visit, help with the baby when James’ was away on business. She was the one that suggested a nanny for him – had found Elanor and introduced her into his home. 

She was pretty, this girl with dark hair and grey eyes – his father approved of her, far more than he ever did _Lily_, because Elanor was from a good Pureblood family. 

The baby seemed to like her well enough, James supposed; he hadn’t made much of an effort to spend time with him. Often, he would leave him with his mother, or hire a sitter for the day while he worked or visited Sirius (and sometimes Remus) on the odd occasion. 

Elanor wasn’t like her, wasn’t as charming or vibrant, didn’t laugh as loudly or as brightly, but she was something. She made James feel better. She was alive and she was warm, she understood what it meant to lose the love of your life. 

So, they married, eventually. His mother insisted it was too soon, his father commended him for moving on. Sirius and Remus did not attend the wedding. The baby, _Harry_ – sometimes he has to force himself to say the name that she gave him, to acknowledge the little human that cruelly killed her – was six months when Elanor became pregnant. 

It felt normal, it felt right. 

James stopped thinking about her all the time. The emptiness receded, little by little, replaced by Elanor and her smile and her laugh and the baby she gave him. _Fleamont_, who looked exactly like him. Who hadn’t taken another woman from him. 

It felt _normal_, it felt _right_ – this little family of his, Elanor and Fleamont. 

✹✹✹

_**THERE IS A**_ scar on his son’s forehead. It is jagged as though someone had taken a stone to the boy’s head and carved a poorly formed line from temple to brow. Fleamont would not stop crying, _he_ would not stop crying and his mother was lying on the ground, dead from where Voldemort had struck her. 

Elanor is trying to comfort their son even as Order members and Auror move through the debris of what was once James’ home. Dumbledore is saying something to him – “to survive such a curse alone is astounding.” – but James’ only has eyes on the baby that is staring at him from the shattered remains of a crib. 

_Those_ eyes, _her_ eyes – would they never cease to haunt him? Toddler arms reach for him, wanting the same comfort that his brother is receiving. 

James turns away. 

“What do we do now?” he asked of Dumbledore.

“For now, we breath a sigh of relief,” Dumbledore said. “Voldemort is gone – for a how long remains to be seen. But he is gone nonetheless, and we have your son to thank for that.” 

James does not need to look to know that there are eyes trained on his infant son, cradled in his mother’s arms; on the scar he’d been left. The mark of Voldemort. 

When it is over, when his mother’s body has been moved to St. Mungo’s and he and Elanor and the children had taken residency in his family’s home, they do not raise a toast in celebration of the defeat of the Dark Lord, they only watch over their son as he sleeps. 

It had been Elanor that had brought it up – but James, James had been thinking of it for so long. It had all but consumed him, this desire. While _he_ was here, he could not rest, could not forget. 

“It would be for the best, love,” she whispered to him, placing a cup in his hands. It smells sweet, the amber liquid – cloying, burning sugar, the coming of spring and lilies. Always lilies. “He would be alright, with a house-elf. My family’s cottage in Castelmoron-d'Albret would suit him fine. He will attend school there, live there. He will be happy, away from this all.” 

_We will be happy._

James agrees, because it for the best. For them, for him, for everyone. 

It is for the greater good. 


End file.
